1. Technical Field
An apparatus disclosed herein generally relates to hand tools. More specifically, the apparatus disclosed herein relates to handheld chisels.
2. Description of the Related Art
Chisels are hand tools with a sharpened, or bladed, end for cutting, carving, or breaking stone, metal, and wood and a non-sharpened end. Conventional chisels require the use of a mallet or a hammer to strike a non-sharpened end of the chisel in order to drive the chisel into a workpiece. A workpiece may therefore be cut, shaped, carved, broken, or cleaned by positioning the chisel on the work piece and hitting the chisel with a mallet or a hammer.
Conventional chisels have several drawbacks. First, as discussed above, users of conventional chisels hold a conventional chisel in one hand and strike the chisel with a hammer or mallet using another hand. Even skilled users, however, can miss the chisel with the hammer or mallet and land a striking blow on the hand that is holding the chisel, causing injury to the hand holding the chisel. This problem is only exacerbated when the chisel is held by one person and the hammer blows are delivered by a second person. At least one object of at least one apparatus disclosed herein is to provide a chisel that prevents injury to a user of a chisel.
Second, conventional chisels cannot be operated without an additional tool, namely, a hammer or mallet. The mechanical advantage of a chisel is provided in focusing the force of a striking blow into a sharpened end of the chisel. However, that mechanical advantage cannot be obtained without some additional tool to provide a striking blow to the chisel. Thus, at least one problem with conventional chisels is that conventional chisels require the use of two tools for proper operation. It is one object of at least one apparatus disclosed herein to provide a self-contained chisel, which includes a striker, and thus eliminates the need for two separate tools to operate a chisel.
Third, conventional chisels are made to suit one particular purpose. Thus, a user must acquire multiple chisels that are suitable for each different purpose. For example, a carpenter's chisel has a sharpened end for cutting wood while a welding chisel may be sharpened to a wide flat blade suitable for scraping scale from a weld. The sharpened end of the carpenter's chisel would be ruined by scraping the scale off a weld. Likewise, the wide flat blade on the welding chisel is not sharp enough to cut wood. While these are merely examples of two kinds of chisels, and there are hundreds or possibly even thousands of different kinds of chisels, it is apparent that different chisels are suitable for a particular purpose. It is one object of at least one apparatus described herein to provide a chisel with removable bits that allow a user to change the bit or blade on the chisel without requiring an entirely different chisel.